Golkar man to be asked on Permadi
Golkar man to be asked on Permadi
JAKARTA (JP): Police will be questioning a senior official of the ruling Golkar party who publicly accused soothsayer Permadi Satrio Wiwoho of blasphemy.
Police Chief Gen. Banurusman Astrosemitro said yesterday that Din Syamsuddin will be questioned in connection with the illicit mass production and sale of Permadi's controversial audio tapes in Central Java.
The tapes contain Permadi's comments, from a closed seminar at the Gajah Mada University, in which he allegedly described Prophet Muhammad as a dictator.
Syamsuddin, who heads Golkar's research and development section and did not attend the seminar, insists that the remark was blasphemous and that the psychic account for it before the court.
Banurusman said police are yet to determine when Syamsuddin will be summoned for questioning.
"He will be questioned in connection with the illicit mass production and sale of the cassettes," he told journalists.
Permadi is also in trouble for the remarks he made in the seminar and in an interview last year with Radio Unisi, of Yogyakarta. In the seminar, he allegedly likened Golkar with the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party, while in the talk show he predicted political calamity will occur this year.
Golkar chief Harmoko has planned to sue him for the comment. Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher will also file a lawsuit against him for accusing his ministry of embezzling enormous amounts of money from the yearly haj pilgrims it organizes.
Numerous Moslem groups under Golkar have taken to the streets to condemn Permadi for his allegedly blasphemous remarks and demanded that he be brought before the court.
Chairman of the Moslem-oriented United Development Party, Ismail Hasan Metareum, likens Permadi to Salman Rushdie, a British author who wrote the book Satanic Verses, which Moslems consider blasphemous.
But not all local Moslem leaders condemn Permadi. Abdurrahman Wahid, chairman of the 30 million member Nahdlatul Ulama, for example, says there was nothing blasphemous in the paranormal's remarks.
Forum Demokrasi, which Gus Dur, as he is popularly known, leads made a statement yesterday that the Permadi affair shows how the people in power turn public sentiment into "political energy."
The statement, signed by the chairman of the forum's working group, Bondan Gunawan, said that the government has used the public resentment as part of its crackdown on elements critical of its policies. (bsr/pan)